Asking for help

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Running head: Biopsychosocial – Ana Colon’s Story

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Biopsychosocial – Ana Colon’s Story

Biopsychosocial: Ana Colon’s Story

Silberman School of Social Work

The Children’s Village is a social service agency that provides various services to children, youth and families. The children’s Village has community and residential programs for children and youth involved in the foster care system. In this paper, I will solely focus on one of the community programs offered at this agency, the foster care program. I currently work as a Bilingual Home-finder at the Children’s Village in the Adoption and Foster Care department. My role is to train and license perspective foster parents. To start the process of becoming a foster parent, interested individuals have to take the following steps: attend an orientation, complete a 30 hours training called Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting, or MAPP, provide the agency with required documentation for the home licensing process and be subjected to criminal and child maltreatment background checks. Upon successful completion of the listed items, the home of the perspective foster parent will be certified and ready to take children that have been removed from their biological families by the Administration for Children Services or ACS.

There are many reasons why people that come to our orientation want to become a foster parent. A very common reason that some perspective foster parents identified is the desire to help children in need and provide a stable and safe environment. Other people want to become foster parents because they are not able to biologically conceive. Other people; however, want to become foster parents as they have experienced what is like to be a foster child in a system that not always works in the best interest of the child. To me, working with perspective foster parents that have been through the foster care system is very valuable as it brings a more humanistic perspective to the lives of children and youth in care. My assessment is on a current foster parent who is a former foster child. The service user that I chose to asses is a 28 years-old Hispanic woman whose modified name is Ana Colon; she identifies as a lesbian and preferable pronounce is she.

Ana’s life changing experience happened when she had just turned 15 years old. Persuaded by the dream that this country is the “land of opportunity,” Ana’s parents decided to leave everything behind in their country of birth, the Dominican Republic, so Ana and her seven siblings could have a better future. Prior to moving to the United States, Ana had always dreamed with celebrating her sweet sixteen; however, an unexpected family event occurred that prevented Ana’s dream from realizing. One year after moving to the U.S, and a day before her sixteenth birthday, Ana discovered that her parents were in the process of getting divorced. To Ana, this was the worst day of her life as she had never imagined that this could happen to her family. After finding out about her parents’ divorce, Ana’s first instinct was to harm herself to reduce the pain she was experiencing at that moment. Ana locked herself in the bathroom and ingested 15 tablets of Ibuprofen 200 milligrams. After noticing that Ana was taking too long in the bathroom, her youngest sister, Maria started to call her and Ana was unresponsive. Maria was very worried and decided to break the bathroom’s door. To Maria’s surprise, Ana was unconscious and lying down on the floor; Maria immediately called the ambulance and Ana was taken to the Bronx Lebanon Hospital into the intensive care unit. After being in intensive care for one week, Ana finally wakes up and this when the “real nightmare” began, as she expressed.

As a result of Ana’s suicide attempt, the doctor in charge of her recovery, referred Ana to a psychiatric facility to recover from this “mental breakdown.” Ana remained one month at this facility. After being released, Ana refused to stay with her mother or father; she was constantly blaming them for what had happened to her. After spending two weeks at her aunt Carmen’s house, Ana decided to return to her mother. Upon her return home, Ana’s behavior changed drastically. Ana was very confrontational with her siblings and even with her mom. One night during dinner time, Ana spat her mother in the face after arguing about the reasons why her father was no longer part of the family. Ana’s mother reacted by punching her in the face; Ana sustained a black eye. Ana ran to the phone and called the police, which resulted in the arrest of her mother. Ana and four of her siblings were removed and placed in a non-kinship foster home. After being in foster care for about a month, Ana was notified that she had to engage in weekly visits with her mother to which she refused. Ana later expressed that she did not want to see her mother because she was scared. She also reported that her mother had a history of being abusive to her and had hit on her in more than one occasion.

Initially, Ana and her four siblings were placed together in one foster home; however, this changed after Maria, Ana’s youngest sibling, physically assaulted the biological daughter of their current foster mother, which resulted in the removal of all four children. After this incident, Ana and siblings were placed in separate homes. Ana’s second placement was also disrupted due to Ana constantly living the home without permission or AWOLING. After being AWOL for over two weeks, Ana returned to the agency and asked to be placed in a new home. Ana was placed at Ms. Phillip’s home where she was doing very well. Over a year of Ana residing in Ms. Phillip’s home, the agency attempted to file a termination of parental rights application or TPR as Ms. Phillip showed interest in adopting Ana. However, within a month, Ana had changed her mind and did not want to be adopted, instead, Ana wanted to be discharged to independent living, as she was about to turn Eighteen. Few months after turning eighteen, Ana was discharged from foster care. She had a part-time job at a retail store and was living in a rented bedroom. After being in her job for five months, Ana was fired due to her constant lateness. As Ana lost contact with her siblings and other family members and was unable to pay the rent, Ana was forced to leave the bedroom and ended up at a homeless youth shelter. While residing in the shelter, Ana met Ms. Smith, who was the manager at a supermarket located few blocks away from the shelter. Later, Ms. Smith offered Ana a job as a cashier. Ana was doing very well at her new job and was promoted to shift supervisor which increased her salary. Eight months after being in the shelter, Ana was able to move to a studio apartment and decided to resume her education by enrolling in a GED program. After completing her GED, Ana attended to a community college and obtained an associate’s degree in Medical Assisting. Today, Ana is married to her partner Jazz, and enjoys of a very healthy relationship. Ana also reconnected with all of her siblings. Ana maintains a closed relationship with her siblings; they conserve family unity by celebrating together important holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays.

When I first met Ana at Orientation, she appeared to be very reserved about her personal life. It wasn’t until she started attending training that she began to express her feelings about the real reasons of why she wanted to become a foster parent. On August 3rd of the current year, I went to Ana’s home to complete a home study interview. A home study is the final step in the home opening process; it is a full report of individual history and family history as well as childhood, adolescence, and adulthood histories. When I got to Ana’s home, I explained to her each part of the interview, she appeared to be anxious, and so I decided to make her feel comfortable by first talking about myself. My process of engagement with Ana started when I began to talk about my experience when I came to the United States as a teenager and all the social and academic struggles I faced because I did not speak the English language. Immediately, Ana began to engage and was able to relate to my story. Ana started telling her story by first talking about her interest in becoming a foster parent and why it is so important to her to help children in need. As Ana was speaking about her experiences, it was very hard for me to listen to her without expressing or showing my social schemas so engaged in active listening and tried to validate her feelings.

The meaning of Ana's past experiences has caused her to worry for the wellbeing of other children, who like her, have been removed from their mothers. Ana worries about other children not having the support of an adult to guide them as they transition into adulthood. Ana's life circumstances caused her to take the role of an adult even before she turned 21. Ana did not have any family support which pushed her to not trust anyone. It wasn't until Ana met Ms. Smith, the woman who gave her a second chance, that she began to trust people again. The process of trusting people again was very difficult for Ana as she had lost the hope of ever finding someone who could love and help despite her past. Fortunately, Ana was able to rebuild trust again, and even more significantly, she was able to love again. Her romantic relationship with Jazz not only helped Ana to build a healthy relationship again, but it gave her a second chance to feel loved, hopeful and secured.

Furthermore, the way I was initially making meaning of Ana’s story was by comparing her lived experiences to mine, which was preventing me from understanding Ana’s feelings and behaviors at the time of her traumatic experience. As noted by Finn (2016), “sometimes we share meaning with others based on commonalities of social experience and life circumstances” (p. 33). In essence, while listening to Ana, it was very difficult to get out of my personal lived experiences and to think flexibly. As emphasized by Finn (2016), flexibility allows us to examine self-perceptions as it relates to the perceptions of others, which optimally help us to see the world from multiple perspectives (p. 34). Based on this reasoning, the meaning that Ana gave to her life experiences come from the context of what she lived. By focusing on the context of Ana’s story, I was able to understand that some decisions made by Ana, such as attempting to commit suicide and disrespecting her mother could have been originated from the sudden change of moving to a new country and the divorce of her parents. In addition, contexts of culture and socioeconomic status also added to the meaning that Ana gave to her story. For instance, the cultural shock that Ana experienced when she moved to the United States as such a critical stage of her life, may have been one of the factors that made Ana feel unloved and hopeless. Indeed, the contexts of Ana’s story impacted by understanding of her situation as I was able to analyze the structural barriers that contributed to Ana’s decisions and to some of the outcomes she faced. For instance, if Ana and her family were offered more support by the foster care system while in care, maybe the outcomes of her family would have been more positive and less painful.

Additionally, my approach to objectively understanding Ana’s story has been affected by our similar immigration experience, gender and ethnicity. As a 24 years-old Hispanic woman who also migrated from the Dominican Republic at age 14, it was very challenging to not relate my lived experiences with Ana’s story and compared my worldview with hers. In this case, my positionality allowed me to understand and sympathized with Ana, but our similar experiences tempted me to make my own meaning of her story. My approach was also affected by my inability to relate to Ana’s to sexual orientation. Even though Ana did not talk in details about her sexuality, as a heterosexual woman, I was unable to connect with some of her lived experiences. Certainly, sexual orientation has played a huge role in my life and has shaped how I perceive the world and how others perceive me. Even when Ana and I had similar experiences, our difference of sexual orientations, interfered with my interpretation of her story without bringing my personal biases. Thus, it cannot be denied that similarities and differences between Ana and me, definitely impacted my way of thinking about her story.

Another factor that contributed to the creation of my own meaning about Ana’s story and that affected my approach was my position as the designated worker to decide whether or not Ana was a “suitable” candidate for my agency. The process of becoming a foster parent can be very intrusive as the agency makes multiple visitations to the perspective home to ensure that the individual meets all the requirements and regulations of the agency. In this case, the dynamic of power that a worker, like me, can bring to service user’s life can negatively impact the engagement process between the worker and the service user. As stated earlier, Ana was very hesitant about sharing her life story. I attributed Ana’s hesitancy to the amount of “power” I had in determining whether or not she was a good candidate for my agency. Unfortunately, this dynamic of power can sometimes prevent the service user from realizing that they also have power in given situations. In his definition of power, Bob Mullaly (2010) defines power “as both possessive and relational; people can both have power and exercise it (as cited in Finn, 2016, p. 35). Ana’s power relates to the need of the agency for committed foster parents who can provide a safe space for children in need.

In Ana’s life, dynamics of power affected her in various ways. The power of the foster care system played a crucial role in Ana’s life and the outcomes she faced. In the past four decades, the United States governing systems have been very aggressive in “protecting” the welfare of children. Today, there nearly 428,000 children in foster care and about 55% are children of color (Children’s Bureau, 2015). Historically, the systematic oppression of people of color has made them targets of social injustice and discrimination. Black and brown children are disproportionately more likely than white children to be in foster care. As reported by Roberts (2014), in 1997, black children in New York City were 10 times more likely than white children to be in protective custody. This data still relevant today; in my agency, about 95% of all children in care are black or Hispanic. Sadly, working in a foster care agency has made me realized that the foster care system is an institution, that instead of helping children and families to exit the cycle of poverty, it furthers stigmatizes and control poor people. Certainly, Ana’s case is not the exception where the child welfare system fails a poor family by not providing effective services to help them overcome their difficulties.

As noted by Finn (2016), there are different forms of power. “Power over, power from within and to act” (p. 45). When analyzing Ana's story, we can appreciate how power with manifest. She experienced the force of external power inflicted by the foster care system, and internal power from her family’s decomposition. The internal power, her family, caused her to feel unloved which let her to attempt to end her life. As for the external power, the foster care system, failed to provide Ana with additional resources or intervention to help her alleviate the pain that she was experiencing. As for the power to act, Ana’s life circumstances made her a stronger person. Ana’s strengths showed when she decided to sign up herself out of care and face the world alone. Even though Ana expressed that sometimes she wanted to give up, especially when she was living in a shelter, she continued to fight against individual and systematic adversities.

Moreover, Ana’s desire of becoming a foster parent was also jeopardized by my agency’s standards. When looking for a foster parent, my agency does not focus on the perspective foster parent’s needs per se, instead, it focuses on the need of the system. The way that my agency assesses the motivation and capacity of perspective foster parents is by altering the meaning of a person’s story to match the agency’s requirements. The MAPP training, for instance, is a way to access an individual’s commitment to the process. The MAPP training is 30 hours long and is usually facilitated for 10 weeks for three hours once a week. This training is very intensive and not all candidates complete it. The completion rate for this training about 65%. In addition, the meaning that the agency makes on perspective foster parents comes from the ability of an individual to sustain a home and to have an income source. If individuals do not meet the stated requirements, they cannot longer continue the process of becoming foster parents.

Overall, similarities and differences between Ana and I, affected my approach to adequately address her feelings. My personal biases affected the way I made meaning of Ana’s story. I mainly struggled with trying not to assume that Ana has my same worldview as we share similar experiences. However, the Just Practice framework of focusing on meaning, context, power, history and possibility allowed me to critically reflect on Ana’s story. Ana’s determination to better herself can serve as an inspiration to many people that have experienced similar experiences. From Ana’s story, I have learned about her strengths and eagerness to improve her life and the lives of children that have experienced similar situations. Presently, Ana’s home has been certified and is ready for placement of foster children. I’m convinced that Ana will greatly benefit from this new experience as she will be able to accomplish her biggest dream and will be providing love, safety and consistency to the lives of children, who like her, were separated from their biological parents.

References

Children’s Bureau. (2015). The AFCARS Report: Children in Foster Care. Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport23.pdf

Finn, J.L. (2016). Just Practice: A social Justice Approach to Social Work (3rd ed). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Roberts, D. (2014). Race and Class in the Child Welfare System. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fostercare/caseworker/roberts.html